


Still Golden

by ConvenientAlias



Category: The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), Zenda Novels - Anthony Hope
Genre: M/M, Making Out, POV First Person, in a library
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 05:55:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17892785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: Rudolf has been home for some months when he runs into Rupert at a party. He is not happy about this. Rupert, on the other hand, is much too pleased with himself.





	Still Golden

I must admit that when I returned to England I was in no mood for society. For one thing, I’d just had my fill of it all in Ruritania—when one has been king for some months, the idea of playing court jester or attendant lord at one party or another loses its luster. For another, I was rather heartsick. Thinking of Flavia, there were times when I could barely hold my composure, though of course I did my best. I had told my brother and Rose that nothing of an amorous nature had occurred in Ruritania, so it would be no good to act as heartbroken as I truly was. If I acted a little off, unable to act as cheery as I was accustomed to, I blamed it on caprice, on mood swings—Rose had a poor enough opinion of me that she believed this quite readily, and my brother, despite his suspicions, let me have my excuses and, at my request, let me spend much of my time alone.

However, Rose feels a certain responsibility towards me, as sister-in-law. She feels it is a mark against her pride to let me waste away in solitude. So, though she had given up on the matter of me joining Sir Jacob’s embassy, she refused to give up on me socializing entirely. And when I had spent more than three solid months in hibernation and, in her opinion, stagnation, she demanded I attend a party held by one of her high-society friends. After much persuasion, I gave in.

I mingled. I knew maybe half the guests; I am not sociable, really, but the same old crowd circulates. More knew me than I knew, which was not so unfamiliar a feeling—all the country of Ruritania supposedly knew the king, while I had been constantly guessing names and titles. So I was bluffing my way through conversations with half remembered faces when a face emerged from the crowd that I remembered very, very well.

The face of Rupert of Hentzau.

Had I not already hated the man—and I did truly loathe him—I would have hated him purely for how he handled that introduction. He snuck sideways into the conversation I was having with a nice old lady and calmly introduced himself as “Rupert of Lockesbury”, which, you may note, is not at all true, and I believe Lockesbury is not even a real place or a real family. I eyed him as he laughed at the old woman’s jokes and smiled at me quite innocently. I had not believed, until then, he had the capacity to even fake innocence.

“Oh, Rupert. You are such a joker.” The old woman swatted his arm after he delivered a nice piece of flattery to her with a perfectly straight face. “But I know you’re a liar, dear—I know I look my age, which is higher than thirty, though we won’t go into just how much…”

“Me, a liar? No, madam, but you must be. I won’t credit a year over twenty-five.”

It was too much for me to watch. I cut in. “Lockesbury is quite right, madam. If I had not met you before, the way you look tonight…”

She laughed.

“But here, Lockesbury, there’s something I’d like to talk to you about. Will you step outside for a moment? Or into the library, if you prefer…”

He preferred the library. This surprised me—I would have thought he’d want a clear route to the exit in case I decided to shoot or stab him. Now I had nothing on me that night but a pocketknife, it’s true, but he had no way of knowing that, and with a scoundrel like that, I would have soon strangled him as let him go, given no other option.

In any case, we went to the library. Libraries are always the best rooms at parties. So quiet—sometimes you find a spare introvert or a couple on a rendezvous, but not so many as you’d find out on a terrace. When I saw no one else was around, I gave Rupert the full heat of my righteous anger. Or at least I tried—I fear my shock had me a bit wrong-footed, that and the days of nothingness I had spent at home of late, and so my outrage came out a bit like this:

“You absolute scoundrel! How dare—what are you doing in the country? Good Lord!”

“You can’t have imagined I’d stay in Ruritania,” Rupert said idly. He was examining the books in the nearest bookcase as if he were the literary type, which he most certainly was not. “Come, man… I know you want me shot, but I don’t particularly share that desire.”

“England,” I retorted, “has a treaty with Ruritania which includes extradition of criminals, which, sir, by definition includes you.”

Rupert shrugged. Turning back to me, he grinned. “Extradition is a notoriously tricky process. I can’t imagine anyone will get around to it. And they’d have to find me first.”

“I have found you right now.”

“Ah, play-actor…” Rupert sighed theatrically. Stepping closer, he threw an arm around my shoulder. “ _You_ found me? Who are you to have found me? Surely Rudolf Rassendyll has no reason to recognize Rupert of Hentzau. He had a little vacation in Ruritania, far away from all the big, dangerous, events of the world… No, Rupert of Hentzau and Rudolf Rassendyll have never met, so Rudolf Rassendyll can never report Rupert of Hentzau. It would be much too… awkward.”

He smiled at me as if we were conspirators. My heart quickened. I would like to say it was in anger, at the touch of blackmail in his words, but there is something about Rupert of Hentzau. When he speaks to you as if you really understand each other and really are companions, he makes you want to believe it. Once he almost flattered me into killing the king; no, not really, but he flattered me with the belief that I’d be up to it. He is very good at flattering, Hentzau. I suppose that’s how he gets so many women. Still, I liked to think that I was too clever for him to get me.

Cockiness on my part, I suppose.

Anyhow, he smirked and I scowled because he was right. I very much wanted him arrested and did not see how to go about it. And I also wanted him dead and all I had with me was the pocketknife, and knowing him, he probably had at least a dagger on him. I never found out, that night, but I can’t picture him going anywhere public with less.

So I did the most pitiful thing imaginable and said, “There are others in England who are sure to recognize you—don’t imagine you can get away with this for long. England does not stand for the likes of you.” Pitiful because it was pointless posturing and far too patriotic; I don’t have that much faith in my countrymen, really, but I had to say something.

Rupert chuckled. He had the upper hand and he knew it, the bastard. “I like England.”

“I’d think it too lawful for your tastes.”

“That’s the novel thing about it. You know, play-actor, England had been on my mind for a while. Do you know why?”

“Why?”

I’d taken his bait, and he was utterly gleeful about it. “Why, because of you, of course. I kept on wondering, what sort of country produces this sort of man? What sort of country produces the… ethical rascal? The man who knows what he wants, and knows how to get it, and simply won’t try? A king of lies, yet a sworn liege to honesty… I was more curious than you can imagine. And so I thought I’d see if England was as amusing as you.”

I bit my tongue on insults and defenses and only said, as mildly as I could, “And is it?”

He had stepped close, very close. We were practically nose to nose when he breathed, “Not by half.”

I’m not sure I want to describe what ensued.

I’m not sure, writing in my study now, serene as one could wish, that I can really do it justice or explain it. Why…

I know why I grabbed him by the lapels and pulled him in so roughly. But why I went on to kiss him, pressing our mouths together as if that sort of violence would accomplish anything… Why I let him push me against one of the bookcases and kiss back, on and on ad infinitem until one could not really call it violence anymore but rather the same sort of sweet dancing going on in the main hall we’d left behind…

I don’t know that I could describe it well, so I won’t. Suffice it to say, I wouldn’t do it again, because when it was over, Rupert was smirking even more smugly than before, and for good reason! And I was not really as angry as I had been before, even though I really should have been, even though there was no reason for my anger to have abated.

“Have I pleased your majesty?” he asked me.

“Oh, so now you like calling me a king?” I muttered under my breath. Louder, I said, “Don’t call me that.”

“Why? Your majesty may have lost his crown, but he is still golden to me… or red, I suppose.”

“Bastard.”

I wanted to grab him again and do more senseless things, but I had regained a little of my self control. I stalked out of the library. Alas, he followed me, straight into the hall, and shadowed me for most of the rest of the night. He even introduced himself to my brother and Rose, which was quite risky, my brother knowing a little of my adventures…

It occurs to me now that this might be something of a remedy. My brother knows I know plenty of Ruritania, though we haven’t spoken of it. He also knows enough foreigners that no one would be shocked if he recognized Rupert of Hentzau. But to appeal to my brother hurts my pride, besides which, Rupert, once apprehended, might spill all the truth about me just for the fun of it. It would be a risk. I’ll have to consider it further.

But I was telling you about the end of my evening. Rupert shadowed me even as I left. I think he would have stolen a kiss, if I were a woman—instead, he reached out as if to shake my hand, and when I accepted the handshake, he pulled me into an embrace. Into my ear he whispered a fond “au revoir.” Fond—no, mocking, doubtless. It was only the lateness of the hour that made me imagine affection.

At any rate, I have no affection for Rupert of Hentzau. If he cannot be apprehended, I’ll see what I can do about him while he’s in the country. I have taken to carrying around a dagger of my own, though concealed, and the next time I meet him, I hope to be better prepared—though he has proved time and again that he is a slippery rogue, and now has discovered a new weapon to use against me, one that is far more effective than I like to admit.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has little to do with the prompt it was based off. It was a self-prompt from a list, since I use such things sometimes--this one was "You were always golden to me." What does this have to do with this fic? SO LITTLE. but the fic got written all the same, so I guess the prompt was... golden...  
> Look I just wanted Rupert and Rassendyll to make out.  
> Comments or kudos would be much appreciated, especially in a tiny fandom like this one! (Speaking of which... I feel like I kind of meshed together the novel-verse with more of a Fairbanks Rupert, so I tagged as both--does anyone have an opinion on which branch of the fandom this fic should sit in?)


End file.
